For those who are upset about the lack of media coverage on the ground in Ferguson:

Media outlets are trying, really hard, to get in there. They want to shoot video, take pictures, do interviews. Ferguson Police have basically banned them: Told them to vacate, threatened them with arrest, actually arrested them, hit them with tear gas, took apart their cameras and equipment, and assaulted them.

The media is trying to cover this. But apparently the 1st Amendment doesn’t exist in Ferguson.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievance.”

Not justifying filming concerts, but what the hell? What’s next? They’ll stop us from filming cases of police misconduct? And doesn’t this violate the 1st Amendment? Oh wait, I forgot we don’t have rights..

Oregon officials now going after the home of bakers who refused to bake for lesbian wedding

For the LGBT activists in Oregon’s government, forcing this Christian couple to close their business isn’t enough. Now they’re going after their home, ordering them to pay $135,000 by Monday or face a lien on their mortgage.

from Todd Starnes:

Two Christian bakers who refused to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding have been ordered to pay $135,000 in damages by July 13 or else the state of Oregon could place a lien on their home.

Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, were punished by the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI) for unlawfully discriminating against a same-sex couple.

The Kleins, who are devout evangelical Christians, argued that baking the cake would be a violation of their religious beliefs.

The BOLI ruling ordered the mom-and-pop bakers to pay $135,000 to the lesbian couple. They were also slapped with a gag order that prohibits them from speaking publicly about their refusal to participate in or bake wedding cakes for same-sex unions.

And now - they have until July 13 to pay the damages or else face additional fines and a possible lien on their home.

“This is intimidation and bullying - that’s exactly what it is,” Klein told me in a telephone interview.“ They are trying to strong-arm me into handing over $135,000 to the two girls and if I win on appeal - they will never pay me back.”

A BOLI spokesman confirmed they sent a standard payment letter to the Kleins’ attorney.

“The letter informs them that if we do not hear from them, we may turn the matter over to the Department of Revenue, which can place a lien on real property,” the spokesman told me.

BOLI said they would also be willing to accept either a full payment or payment arrangements.

“Of course, they can also ask for a stay of enforcement while they pursue their appeal,” the spokesman said.

But there’s a catch. The person who will determine whether or not to stay the order — is BOLI Commissioner Brad Avakian — a vocal supporter of the LGBTQIA movement.

“The judge, jury and executioner are all in one place,” said Anna Harmon, the Kleins’ attorney. “He is intent on using his office to root out thought and speech with which he personally disagrees.”

The violent video of Sandra Bland’s arrest is like a 21st century Rorschach test for detecting racists

Remember that time Reese Witherspoon’s husband got arrested for drunk driving, and she interfered with the arrest and (gasp) talked back to a cop who had no idea who she was? And remember how the police got mad, pointed a taser at her head and threatened to light her up, physically assaulted her even after she was handcuffed, and then slammed her head into the ground and put their knees on her back, all because she was being “too mouthy” and not obeying them?

Me neither…funny how the police managed to treat an “uncooperative” white woman with dignity and respect, and not brutalize her even though she was being “combative” and interfering in an arrest, and even “talking back” after the police repeatedly and politely told her to stay away.

“Talking back” is not against the law; in fact, it’s a constitutionally protected right - remember these things called the 1st and 4th Amendments?

When dozens of armed white people can publicly point loaded weapons at law enforcement officers to defend some racist hick like Cliven Bundy, and no one gets so much as a ticket, I don’t want to hear jack shit about Sandra Bland’s “bad attitude”…not from the “don’t tread on me” Tea Baggers, and certainly not from the so-called “civil libertarians” crowd that rides so damn hard for Ed Snowden.

Speaking of which, isn’t it odd how neither party - Libertarians nor the Tea Party - is officially making a big fuss or complaining about Sandra Bland’s civil liberties being violated. edit: I don’t want to leave out the “liberals” who celebrate the Stonewall Riots, but wagged their fingers at Baltimore and Ferguson protesters. Hmm… It’s almost like there’s two Americas with two completely different sets of rules and double standards, depending on your race.

Reverend Jesse Jackson talked about government surveillance saying: “I recall the FBI wiretapping of Dr. King and the civil rights and black movements and organizations; and recently the surveillance of the activity of Rainbow PUSH Coalition and Black Lives Matter.”

Recently Edward Snowden also made a statement where he claimed that FBI doesn’t need Apple’s help to unlock iPhones, which makes the whole situation even worse and scary. Our government wants us to believe that we are a democratic country, that we have freedom of speech and personal space, but this is, in Snowden’s words, horseshit. We are being spied on by our own country on a daily basis. Have you given the consent? Cause I haven’t.

A great comic on Free Speech from XKCD.com Seriously, more people need to understand this about the 1st Amendment. It does indeed mean that I have the right to be offended and to voice that offense directly at your face.

I’m a guy. This is my rant about how screwed up SCOTUS got the buffer zone ruling. First of all: it’s not “free speech” or “sidewalk counseling” protesters are trying to do to people entering healthcare clinics

This is my story. Not very long ago, I dated a girl and one day she missed her period. She and I both thought she was pregnant, but we weren’t sure and we really needed to know. At the time neither of us had insurance or primary care physicians. So we did several (five or six I think) home pregnancy tests, but each one said something different; in essence we were half pregnant and half maybe not pregnant. Obviously, that wasn’t going to do

So somehow I came up with the bright idea for us to visit a free clinic (which I later learned was a Planned Parenthood center) to get a free pregnancy test administered by someone who had a medical background and actually knew what they were doing. I guess like a lot of people, I had no idea about “reproductive rights” or anti-abortion protesters, or anything like that, and if you had asked me about Roe v. Wade back then, I’m not sure I could have told you what it was…and this was less than ten years ago

Anyway, my gf and I were a little scared and emotional and maybe a little shaken up long before we arrived at Planned Parenthood. The possibility of being a baby mama or baby daddy in your early twenties can be a little jarring when you weren’t expecting it and can barely afford to feed your pets

I was completely unprepared for what we faced next: a line of old people on either side of the sidewalk shouting and yelling at us and shaking signs of bloody aborted fetuses in our faces. And remember, we were just there for a simple pregnancy test. Abortion was literally something neither of us had even thought about before. And long before I got angry, I remember being a little stunned: at 5’10” and 180 pounds, I may not be a huge hulking guy, but generally speaking, most people (especially old white people) don’t make it a point to get all up in my face. After a few moments of literally walking up the sidewalk through what could only be described as a gauntlet, well, then I got mad. And it honestly takes quite a lot to get me angry, but if you really want to get me there, yelling at my gf is the right way to do it. My gf, who only days before recently had outpatient surgery to remove a benign cyst, was holding my arm so tightly that she said her arm (where she had the surgery) was beginning to hurt her. And right at that moment, the precise wrong moment, was when some old guy got within inches of my gf’s face to yell something at her. Now…I am by no means a violent person and I was taught to respect people older than me, but in that moment, despite knowing the likely penalty below the Mason-Dixon for assaulting an old white man, I was in the process of reaching back with my free arm to knock this guy all the way into next year -and, fortunately for me, that’s when someone from Planned Parenthood literally got between us, threw up their coat over me and my gf, and escorted us the rest of the way inside

Long story short, it was a false alarm and my gf wasn’t pregnant. But we had both gotten an up close and personal look at anti-abortion “sidewalk counselors” and it wasn’t pretty. Those people were a dangerous mob, and caring about the well being of a possible mother-to-be (or a child that she might be carrying, for that matter) was quite literally the furthermost thing from their minds; enforcing their personal opinions onto people women is their only concern. It seems to me that such coercive tactics and attempted intimidation is closer to political/domestic terrorism than to counseling

The Supreme Court got it completely wrong today. This case was never about “free speech” because anti-abortion activists aren’t interested in legitimately “protesting” or “talking” to anyone

White conservatives are constantly complaining about their constitutional rights being threatened, but I haven’t heard any conservative politician speak out against the Ferguson police force violating protesters’ 1st amendment right to peacefully protest. I guess the 1st amendment only applies to white people.

It’s a comforting thing to know that there are still a handful of professors like Mike Williams out there in our nation’s public universities. Williams is a professor of sociology and criminology at UNC-Wilmington, and he published a portion of his opening lecture to his students, especially those who believe that they have a “right not to be offended.” It’s as hilarious as it is timely.